Elon Musk: Advice for Young People | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips

Summary

Elon Musk encourages young people to read widely to gain knowledge, find meaningful work at the intersection of their talents and interests, and aim to create more value than they consume. He advises developing a 'grow the pie' mindset rather than zero-sum thinking, celebrating others' successes, and making a positive net contribution to society.

Takeaways

• Read widely to explore interests and build general knowledge
• Find work you're skilled at and passionate about
• Create more economic, social, and moral value than you consume
• Cultivate a 'grow the pie' cooperative mindset rather than zero-sum thinking
• Celebrate others' successes rather than seeing life as a competition
• Make a positive net contribution to the world
• Develop useful skills and apply them for good
• Aim to live a useful life and help fellow humans
• Be wary of questionable acts rooted in unconscious zero-sum beliefs
• Add to the economic pie by creating value, not taking slices

Q & A

What broad advice does Elon Musk give to young people?

He encourages them to read widely to gain knowledge, find meaningful work at the intersection of their talents and interests, and aim to create more value than they consume while making a positive net contribution to society.

Why does Musk recommend reading an encyclopedia?

To quickly build general knowledge across many areas and help young people determine what subjects they are truly interested in and skilled at.

What is the difference between a zero-sum mindset and a 'grow the pie' mindset?

A zero-sum mindset sees life as a competition with limited resources, requiring taking from others to succeed. A 'grow the pie' mindset believes cooperation can create more value so everyone benefits.

How can celebrating others' successes result in more resources and opportunities?

By promoting ideas and exciting interest in areas like science, research, and technology, more funding and progress can happen, benefiting wider fields.

What does Musk mean when he says to create more economic value than you consume?

That your work and skills should produce goods, services, innovations etc. of higher value than the resources you use up.

Outlines

00:00

Advice for Young People Seeking Purpose and Meaning

Elon Musk advises young people to try to be useful and make a positive contribution to society. He says leaders often don't want to be leaders, so just focus on living a useful life. Apply physics principles broadly and read books on many subjects to explore interests. Find an overlap between your talents, interests, and positive impact.

05:00

Avoid Zero-Sum Thinking

Elon emphasizes avoiding zero-sum thinking where gain requires taking from others. Instead adopt a grow-the-pie mindset. Create more than you consume and contribute value. Realize the economic pie can grow, it's not fixed. Some people act unethically due to unconscious zero-sum beliefs. Celebrate others' success to grow opportunities.

Keywords

💡Reading

Musk emphasizes the importance of reading a lot and widely as a way to learn about different subjects, gain knowledge, and figure out one's interests. He recommends reading encyclopedias, books in different fields, and authors from various backgrounds. This helps a person explore the 'knowledge landscape' to determine where their talents and passions intersect.

💡Useful

Being useful is a key theme in Musk's advice. He recommends aiming to live and work in a way that provides value to other people and society. Musk suggests focusing on how to positively contribute more than you consume. He praises being useful over seeking leadership for its own sake.

💡Zero-sum mindset

Musk warns against unconsciously having a zero-sum mindset, where progress is seen as a competition with limited resources. This mindset leads to trying to get ahead by taking from others. He contrasts this with a 'grow the pie' mindset of creating value instead of competing over fixed resources.

💡Meaning

Musk relates leading a useful life to finding meaning and fulfillment. He references the book 'Man's Search for Meaning' and its exploration of meaning in life. For Musk, meaning comes from positively impacting other people's lives.

💡Talents

Musk advises identifying the overlap between one's inherent talents and interests. This allows finding work you are skilled at and also enjoy doing. He recommends exploring different subjects to discover one's talents before choosing a direction.

💡Mindset

Musk emphasizes mindset and thinking patterns. He believes adopting a 'grow the pie' mindset versus a rigid 'zero-sum' mindset enables creation and collaboration rather than harmful competition. Mindset shapes actions and is often unconscious.

💡Impact

A driving theme in Musk's advice is aiming to have a positive impact on the world. He urges contributing value, avoiding harm, and improving lives. The end goal he sets for careers and education is maximizing one's positive effect.

💡Knowledge

Musk stresses the importance of knowledge as power. He pushes gaining broad knowledge across disciplines to understand the world and one's place in it. Knowledge unlocks potential through learning talents, interests, and opportunities for impact.

💡Exploration

Musk advocates exploring widely as the path to self-discovery. He recommends exploring subjects, fields, books, and people from all walks of life. This exploration helps determine one's talents and meaning through trial and error.

💡Education

Musk sees education as multifaceted beyond just formal university. He endorses self-study, hands-on work, travel, and reading to supplement school. His advice focuses on continuous learning in all aspects of life.

Highlights

Try to be useful, do things that are useful to your fellow human beings and the world.

Aim to contribute more than you consume and have a positive net contribution to society.

Leaders are often people who don't want to be leaders.

Apply the mental tools of physics broadly in life - they are the best tools.

Read a lot of books and try to ingest as much information as possible to develop a broad general knowledge.

Learn a little about a lot of things to help figure out what you're really interested in.

Try to find something where your talents and interests overlap.

Reading broadly across subjects is a fast way to learn what you're good at and interested in.

Try to have a 'grow the pie' mindset rather than a zero-sum mindset.

Focus on creating more than you consume and doing more good than harm.

A zero-sum mindset leads to trying to take from others; a non-zero-sum mindset leads to growing the pie for all.

Celebrating others, promoting their ideas, grows the pie - resources become less scarce.

In academia and elsewhere, celebrating and enabling others increases funding and opportunities for all.

The economic pie has grown dramatically over time - it's not fixed or zero-sum.

The key is to work on adding value, creating more than you consume, doing good.

Transcripts

you uh like I mentioned with with SpaceX

you give a lot of people hope and a lot

of people look up to you millions of

people look up to you uh if we think

about young people

in high school maybe in college

um what advice would you give to them

about

if they want to try to do something big

in this world they want to really have a

big positive impact what advice would

you give them about their career maybe

about life in general

try to be useful

um you do things that are useful to your

fellow human beings to the world it's

very hard to be useful

um

very hard

um you know are you contributing more

than you

consume you know like uh

like can you

try to have a positive net contribution

to society

um

I think that's the thing to aim for you

know not not to try to be sort of a

leader for

for the sake of being a leader or

whatever

um

a lot of times people who if a lot of

times the people you want as leaders are

are the people who don't want to be

leaders

so

um

if you live a useful life

that is a good life

a life worth

having lived

um you know and I like I said I would I

would encourage people to

I use the mental tools of physics and

apply them broadly in life there are the

best tools when you think about

education and self-education what do you

recommend so there's the university

there is

a self-study

there is uh Hands-On sort of finding a

company or a place or a set of people

that do the thing you're passionate

about and joining them as early as

possible

um there's uh taking a road trip across

Europe for a few years and writing some

poetry which uh which which trajectory

do you suggest

in terms of learning about how you can

become useful as you mentioned how you

can have the most positive impact

what I encourage people to read a lot of

books just read like basically try to

ingest as much information as you can

uh and try to also just develop a good

general knowledge

um

so so you at least have like

a roughly of the land of the the

knowledge landscape

um like try to learn a little about

about a lot of things

um because you might not know what

you're really interested how would you

know what you're really interested in if

you at least aren't like doing it

peripheral exploration and broadly of

of

the knowledge landscape

um

and you talk to people from different

walks of life and different uh

Industries and professions and skills

and occupations like just try you know

learn as much as possible

Man's Search for meaning

isn't the whole thing a search for

meaning

is yeah what's the meaning of life and

all you know but just generally like I

said I would encourage people to read

broadly

um in many different subject areas

um

and and and then try to find something

where there's an overlap of your talents

and and what you're interested in so

people may be good at something but

although they may have skill at a

particular thing but they don't like

doing it

um

so you want to try to find a thing where

you have your that's a good a good uh

combination of of your of the things

that you're inherently good at but you

also like doing

um

and um and reading is a super fast

shortcut to to figure out which where

are you you both good at it you like

doing it and it will actually have

positive impact but you got to learn

about things somehow So reading

a broad range it's just a really read it

you know more important was that kid I I

read through the encyclopedia uh so

that's pretty helpful

um

and uh

also things I didn't even know existed a

lot so obviously it's like as broad as

it gets it's like creators were

digestible I think uh you know whatever

40 years ago

um

so

um you know maybe read through the the

condensed version of the Encyclopedia

Britannica I'd recommend that

um you can always like skip subjects

though you read a few paragraphs and you

know you're not interested just jump to

the next one

that's a read encyclopedia

skim through it

um

and um

but I you know I put a lot of stock in

certainly have a lot of respect for

someone who puts in an honest day's work

uh to do useful things

and and just generally to have like not

a zero-sum mindset

um or or like have have more of a

grow the pie mindset like the

if you sort of say like when when we see

people like have some including some

very smart people

kind of taking an attitude of like like

doing things that seem like morally

questionable

it's often because they have at a base

sort of axiomatic level a zero-sum

mindset

um and and they without realizing it

they don't realize they have a zero sum

mindset or at least that they don't

realize it consciously

um and so if you have zero Sun mindset

then the only way to get ahead is by

taking things from others

if it's like if if the if the pie is

fixed then the only way to have more pie

is to take someone else's pie

but but this is false like obviously the

pie has grown dramatically over time the

economic pie

so the real in reality you can have that

so overuse this analogy if you have a

lot of there's a lot of pie

yeah it's not fixed

um uh so you really want to make sure

you don't you're not operating

um without realizing it from a zero-sum

mindset where where the only way to get

ahead is to take things from others then

that's going to result in you try to

take things from others which is not not

good it's much better to work on

uh uh adding to the economic pie you

know so

quick creating

like I said creating more than you

consume uh doing more than you yeah um

so that that's a big deal um I think

there's like you know Fair number of

people in

in finance that uh do have a bit of a

zero-sum mindset I mean it's all walks

of life I've seen that one of the one of

the reasons

uh Rogan inspires me is he celebrates

all there's a lot there's not not

creating a constant competition like if

there's a scarcity of resources what

happens when you celebrate others and

you promote others the ideas of others

it it uh it actually grows that pie I

mean it every like the uh the resource

the resources become less scarce and

that that applies in a lot of kinds of

domains it applies in Academia where a

lot of people are very uh see some

funding for academic research is

zero-sum and it is not if you celebrate

each other if you make if you get

everybody to be excited about AI about

physics above mathematics I think it

there'll be more and more funding and I

think everybody wins yeah that applies I

think broadly

uh yeah yeah exactly